commercial breaks: involving kids in creating multimedia adverts for museum objects

				Earthenware pigs
				We asked some of our younger visitors to identify one of the items from the historical display of common household items. Many of the children guessed that the object (right) once contained liquid, perhaps juice or beer.
				Some children thought that it was for saving your money in! Most of our older visitors recognised it as a hot water bottle and many remember their grand parents using then in their beds when they were children. Before the use of rubber or latex became common in the manufacture of household items, earthenware was used to make hot water bottles. Hot water was poured in from the kettle and the whole thing placed in the bed. It was strong, durable and conducted heat to provide the user with a warm but not very soft place to put their feet whilst in bed.
		How we made the advert
		The idea for the advert came from hearing some of the children’s ideas of what a pig would sound like under the covers in a bed. We tried to imagine what would happen if a real pig jumped out of the bed. Many children (and adults) were quite keen to draw us a picture of what they thought this might look like. It was very hard choosing which ones to use. We eventually decided to use the bed that Rebecca age 10 had drawn with the pink pig that Daniel age 9 had created. We put them together and made a simple animation. Lots of children had great fun recording snorting pig sounds, but Scott (7) and James aged 6 did this with great enthusiasm. Jordan age 11 was very professional at providing us with the voice-over and with the help of some sound editing on the computer we tried to ‘lip sinc’ the vocals with the pig. Finally we would like to thank Peter age 11 (right) for the use of his face! In the final scene you will see Peter’s face changed into a pig. “Face squashing” proved very popular; taking digital photos of children’s faces, then using software and various filters to squash, stretch, and melt them. With a little imagination we manage to mould Peter’s face into a pig’s face, animate it and use Mark’s (10) voice to create the final scene.